This portion of Carl Klein's 1914 emergency passport application shows just a little of the information available on this document.

Imagine traveling overseas, a war breaks out and you’ve lost your passport. What do you do? Well, I would probably go to the nearest American Consulate. And that’s exactly what my great-grandfather did when he and my great-grandmother were traveling in Germany in 1914.

Through Ancestry.com, I found a passport application filled out by my great-grandfather dated Aug. 25, 1914 and it just an amazing document. It’s not all that often that you’ll run into one of these, but when you do, it’s genealogical gold. But more on that in a bit.

My great-grandfather, Carl Klein (you can see a picture of my great-grandparents here), came to the United States in April, 1883 and became a citizen on Oct. 13, 1888. He lived in what was then called West Hoboken working in embroidery, as so many German – and later, Cuban – immigrants did. They decided they would go back to the old country for a visit and landed in Hamburg on July 14, 1914. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28. Germany sided with Austria-Hungary, Russia sided with Serbia, Germany invaded France and Belgium, the United Kingdom joined the Allied Powers to help protect Belgium’s neutrality and thus, World War I began.

My great-grandparents were relatively safe, since they were German by birth and the United States would not enter the war for another three years. But they desperately wanted to get home. They had made a life here, their children were here. And they were missed. Amidst all the news about the war, a story ran on the front page of The Jersey Journal on Aug. 27 headlined, “More inquiries about Hudson folk,” which read, in part, “The State Department sent a cable of inquiry about Mr. and Mrs. Carl Klein of West Hoboken, last heard from at Franenberg [meaning Frankenberg], Germany.”

But by that time they had already gone to the American Consulate in Chemnitz (where my great-grandmother’s family hailed from) and they filled out a form.

This may be one of the only times in my life where I say “Thank God for bureaucrats,” because the information on this form is a genealogist’s dream. On one piece of paper I found my great-grandfather’s name, his wife’s name, his birthday, his birthplace, the date he originally left Germany, the name of the boat he sailed on, the date and place of his naturalization, his home address, his occupation and his signature. Now, I already had some of this information, but to find it all on one page was completely shocking to me. Such a find! Thank you for losing your passport great-Grandpa!

From here I can pick up his citizenship papers, check maps as to where he lived and I have a head start on information about his birth for further research. All because he lost his passport. The moral of the story is: If you find one of your ancestors has filled out an emergency passport application, grab that as fast as you can.

I’d like to add a gentle reminder here that the Jersey City Free Public Library is sponsoring a couple of free workshops in honor of Historic Preservation Month. Do some genealogy – on your home! On Tuesday we’ll offer Researching Home History and on May 22, there will be a genealogy workshop by yours truly. Both will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Main Library’s New Jersey Room, 472 Jersey Ave., third floor. Admission is free but reservations are required. Please call 201-547-4503 to reserve your spot.

Daniel Klein is a library assistant at the Jersey City Free Public Library’s New Jersey Room and a past president of the Hudson County Genealogical and Historical Society. He can be reached at hudsongenealogy@gmail.com